Mario had fought a duel to discipline an impertinent knave who in his presence had made sport of the marquis's plaster mask, black hair and innumerable bows and buckles. Mario had dealt severely with his adversary—it was his first affaire!—but Bois-Doré, being informed of the episode after it was over, did not choose to expose his son to a repetition of it. Suddenly, and without a word to any one, he abandoned his dye and his wig one day on the pretext that Monsieur de Richelieu was justified in proscribing luxury, and that everyone should set a good example. Being thus resigned to appear old and ugly, he heroically appeared before his family. But to his great surprise they all uttered an exclamation of pleasure, and the Moor artlessly said to him:
"Ah! how handsome you are, master! I thought you much older than you are!"
The fact is that the marquis was exceedingly well preserved under his mask, and was extraordinarily handsome considering his great age. He did not know—he was not likely to know—what infirmities were. He still retained his teeth; his ample, bald forehead was furrowed by graceful wrinkles, without a trace of malice or hatred; his moustache and royale, white as snow, stood out against his yellowish-brown complexion, and his great eye, keen and laughing, still shone mildly through his long, bushy, bristling eyebrows.
He was still erect as a young poplar, and stiff in proportion; but he no longer shrank from placing his foot in Aristandre's powerful hand to mount his horse. Once in the saddle, he was as firm as a rock.
Thereafter he received so many sincere compliments upon his beautiful old age, that he changed his whole system of coquetry: instead of concealing his age, he exaggerated it, representing himself as eighty years old although he was but seventy-seven, and taking the keenest pleasure in astonishing his young comrades-in-arms by his tales of the old wars, long buried in the archives of his memory.
On the 3d of March—that is to say on the second day after the meeting of the Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré with Monsieur Poulain—the royal vanguard, consisting of ten or twelve thousand picked men, camped at Chaumont, the last village on the frontier. The volunteers, having no materials for a camp, passed the night as best they could in the village.
The marquis tranquilly retired in the first bed that came to hand, and fell asleep like a man inured to the trade of war, who knew how to make the best of the hours of repose, to sleep for one hour when he had but one, and for twelve, to provide against emergencies, when he had nothing better to do.
Mario, intensely excited and impatient to fight, sat up with several, young men, volunteers like himself, with whom he had become acquainted on the road.
It was in a wretched inn, the common room of which was so crowded that one could hardly turn about, and so filled with tobacco smoke that men could not recognize one another.
While the regular troops were as sedate and silent as the most rigid community of monks, the bands of volunteers were merry and uproarious. They drank and laughed and sang obscene songs, recited erotic or amusing verses; they talked of politics and love-making; they quarreled and embraced.